The Council on Tall Buildings and Urban Habitat (CTBUH) said unusable space at the top of the UAE's 19 tallest buildings was an average 19 percent of their total height, a measure it called the "vanity height".

Obstacles to importing building material, especially from Turkey, is developing into a new crisis threatening real estate projects in the Kingdom. The threat emerged at a time when the Ministry of Housing plans to build around 40,000 homes and 500,000 low-cost homes to solve the country's pressing housing problem.

The trend over the past decade has been clear: Higher costs—driven by jet fuel prices—have prompted airlines to pack their planes. The annual average load factor for U.S. carriers rose from 71.9 percent in 2002 to 82.8 percent last year. And carriers aren't even making bigger profits from the crowded planes: The industrywide "break-even" point for U.S. flights has gone from 69.4 percent in 2000 to 80.9 percent last year.

World leaders need to understand and acknowledge the decisive nature of energy decline. The struggle, killing, and chaos in Syria are a preview of what will happen throughout the world as energy constraints tighten and unrest builds. Energy decline is one of the main ingredients in the recipe for collapse. -- RF

Is China Laying Down Stakes at Disputed Scarborough Shoal?Manila has expressed concern over the discovery of 75 square concrete blocks found near the entrance of the Scarborough Shoal, which is within the Philippines exclusive economic zone (EEZ) in the South China Sea but China has claimed as sovereign territory.

Platts reports data this week showing that the current Chinese price for thermal coal (as reflected in the FOB Qinhuangdao 5500 NAR marker) is below the cost of production for more than 90% of domestic miners. That's a huge revelation for the global thermal coal market. No one in China is making money at current prices.

So just raise the price of coal. What's that? You say the Chinese people will revolt? That's a problem. -- RF

It's a good question to ask. We have lots of "liquids," but hardly anyone is asking about the "take-home" energy left after deducting energy expenditures and accounting for the increasing proportion of junk oil. Costs are of course highly indicative of net energy decline. As in the unprofitability of Chinese coal, above, or the threatened profitability of oil in Malaysia, or the unprofitability of US shale gas, or the rising extraction cost of Powder River coal, costs are skyrocketing. Peak oil debunkers see only the quantity of "liquids" but are blind to quality, cost, sustainability, and of course net energy. And that error is their downfall. -- RF

Over the last century, as the US food system mechanized and as Americans came to prefer more processed foods, the energy return of the US food system fell to the point where, as I articulate in my essay The Energy Cost of Food, it now takes 15-20 Calories of energy inputs to deliver one Calorie of food in the US once waste and spoilage are accounted for. That's an investment of 15-20 Calories into the system to get 1 Calorie of food, a steeply negative return on investment.S. Korea expands ban on fish imports from Japan

USDA pilot program fails to stop contaminated meatA meat inspection program that the Agriculture Department plans to roll out in pork plants nationwide has repeatedly failed to stop the production of contaminated meat at American and foreign plants that have already adopted the approach, documents and interviews show.

## Intelligence/propaganda/security/internet/cyberwar ##Google encrypts data amid backlash against NSA spyingGoogle is racing to encrypt the torrents of information that flow among its data centers around the world in a bid to thwart snooping by the NSA and the intelligence agencies of foreign governments, company officials said Friday.

Chinese Zombies Emerging After Years of Solar SubsidiesOnly five solar-power vendors remain in a space built for 170 at a sprawling complex of offices stacked three stories high outside Xinyu city in China's southeast. Locked doors and empty offices are what's left of the government's audacious plan to dominate the global solar industry. What happened in Xinyu is being replicated across China, which used subsidies and $47.5 billion of credit to wrest supremacy from Germany, Japan and the U.S., saddling an industry with losses for at least two years.